The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

The reading la mia seems preferable to la mano, and is justified by line 45. ↩

Brunetto Latini, Dante’s friend and teacher. Villani thus speaks of him, Cronica, VIII 10:⁠—

“In this year 1294 died in Florence a worthy citizen, whose name was Ser Brunetto Latini, who was a great philosopher and perfect master of rhetoric, both in speaking and in writing. He commented the Rhetoric of Tully, and made the good and useful book called the Tesoro, and the Tesoretto, and the Keys of the Tesoro, and many other books of philosophy, and of vices and of virtues, and he was Secretary of our Commune, He was a worldly man, but we have made mention of him because he was the first master in refining the Florentines, and in teaching them how to speak correctly, and how to guide and govern our Republic on political principles.”

Boccaccio, Comento, speaks of him thus:⁠—

“This Ser Brunetto Latini was a Florentine, and a very able man in some of the liberal arts, and in philosophy; but his principal calling was that of Notary; and he held himself and his calling in such great esteem, that, having made a mistake in a contract drawn up by him, and having been in consequence accused of fraud, he preferred to be condemned for it rather than to confess that he had made a mistake; and afterwards he quitted Florence in disdain, and leaving in memory of himself a book composed by him, called the Tesoretto, he went to Paris and lived there a long time, and composed a book there which is in French, and in which he treats of many matters regarding the liberal arts, and moral and natural philosophy, and metaphysics, which he called the Tesoro; and finally, I believe, he died in Paris.”

He also wrote a short poem, called the “Favoletto,” and perhaps the “Pataffio,” a satirical poem in the Florentine dialect, “a jargon,” says Nardini, “which cannot be understood even with a commentary.” But his fame rests upon the Tesoretto and the Tesoro, and more than all upon the fact that he was Dante’s teacher, and was put by him into a very disreputable place in the Inferno. He died in Florence, not in Paris, as Boccaccio supposes, and was buried in Santa Maria Novella, where his tomb still exists. It is strange that Boccaccio should not have known this, as it was in this church that the “seven young gentlewomen” of his Decameron met “on a Tuesday morning,” and resolved to go together into the country, where they “might hear the birds sing, and see the verdure of the hills and plains, and the fields full of grain undulating like the sea.”

The poem of the Tesoretto, written in a jingling metre, which reminds one of the Vision of Piers Ploughman, is itself a Vision, with the customary allegorical personages of the Virtues and Vices. Ser Brunetto, returning from an embassy to King Alphonso of Spain, meets on the plain of Roncesvalles a student of Bologna, riding on a bay mule, who informs him that the Guelfs have been banished from Florence. Whereupon Ser Brunetto, plunged in meditation and sorrow, loses the highroad and wanders in a wondrous forest. Here he discovers the august and gigantic figure of Nature, who relates to him the creation of the world, and gives him a banner to protect him on his pilgrimage through the forest, in which he meets with no adventures, but with the Virtues and Vices, Philosophy, Fortune, Ovid, and the God of Love, and sundry other characters, which are sung at large through eight or ten chapters. He then emerges from the forest, and confesses himself to the monks of Montpellier; after which he goes back into the forest again, and suddenly finds himself on the summit of Olympus; and the poem abruptly leaves him discoursing about the elements with Ptolemy,

“Mastro di storlomia
E di filosofia.”

It has been supposed by some commentators that Dante was indebted to the Tesoretto for the first idea of the Commedia. “If any one is pleased to imagine this,” says the Abbate Zannoni in the Preface to his edition of the Tesoretto, (Florence, 1824,) “he must confess that a slight and almost invisible spark served to kindle a vast conflagration.”

The Tesoro, which is written in French, is a much more ponderous and pretentious volume. Hitherto it has been known only in manuscript, or in the Italian translation of Giamboni, but at length appears as one of the volumes of the Collection de Documents Inédits sur l’Histoire de France, under the title of Li Livres dou Tresor, edited by P. Chabaille, Paris, 1863; a stately quarto of some seven hundred pages, which it would assuage the fiery torment of Ser Brunetto to look upon, and justify him in saying

“Commended unto thee be my Tesoro,
In which I still live, and no more I ask.”

The work is quaint and curious, but mainly interesting as being written by Dante’s schoolmaster, and showing what he knew and what he taught his pupil. I cannot better describe it than in the author’s own words. Book I ch. I:⁠—

“The smallest part of this Treasure is like unto ready money, to be expended daily in things needful; that is, it treats of the beginning of time, of the antiquity of old histories, of the creation of the world, and in fine of the nature of all things.⁠ ⁠…

“The second part, which treats of the vices and virtues, is of precious stones, which give unto man delight and virtue; that is to say, what things a man should do, and what he should not, and shows the reason why.⁠ ⁠…

“The third part of the Treasure is